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Grey Poupon, Anyone?
No Thanks, I’ll Take the Habanero and Sweet Potato
by Susan Craig
Mustard has been around for a long time, since 5000 B.C. or so, plenty of time for people to have figured out how to grind up the white, black or brown seeds of Brassica to make soap, skin plasters, and sandwich spreads. As a condiment, it once was available primarily in two colors, yellow or brownish-yellow. You put it on your hot dog or your pastrami on rye. But recently mustards have taken an astounding turn. They’re just not themselves any more.
Take the bright yellow stuff, for instance. When I was growing up in the Midwest, that was the only kind there was. I didn’t like it, so I spent half my life clamoring for food vendors to "Hold the mustard!" Yellow mustard, or "American ballpark," is still the number-one seller in the United States, heading up a $400 million a year industry. But in addition, there are hundreds of other mustard varieties available today through specialty stores, supermarkets, food fairs, catalogs and Web sites. They can be categorized generally as sweet, sweet hot or just plain hot; seasoned, specialty and Dijon-style; with national versions such as Dutch, English, German, Chinese and Scandinavian.
In fact, it was Dutch mustard that set me off.
While visiting northern Holland several years ago I was introduced to mosterdsoep, mustard soup. I loved the stuff so much that I brought home Groningen brown mustard so I could make it for myself, but there was just one problem: I hadn’t gotten recipes. I tried Internet recipes that just didn’t match what I’d tasted. I sent people to Holland to beg for a recipe, but to no avail. I even have friends in Australia who keep trying to duplicate the thing, but to this day we’ve never hit it right. What I did not realize at that time was that my quest to duplicate a particular flavor would turn into a mustard odyssey, and even though the mustard soup has now entered the realms of myth, my mustard taste buds were activated and I’m onto other varieties.
I have company. Mustardheads can celebrate National Mustard Day, which this year takes place on August 7. They can visit the Mount Horeb Mustard Museum in Mount Horeb, Wisconsin and see before their very eyes a collection of over 3,000 mustards, and buy mustards from over sixty countries including lesser-known mustard producers like Israel, Australia, New Zealand and the Czech Republic. Mustard Museum curator Barry Levenson tells me that flavors combining hot peppers and other ingredients like fruit and herbs are storming the industry.
Like mad winemakers combining esoteric grapes, mustard makers are devising astonishing combos like habanero or jalapeño with mango or pineapple, garlic or onion or green chile, or--and Levenson assures me this is true--sweet potato. "When mustard makers first discovered hot peppers," he says, "they just put them in. Now they see that complexity of flavor is required. People are looking for new flavors and combinations. These products speak to the versatility of mustard and peppers both."
The latest rage is for superhots. Now by this I mean products that elicit responses such as: "The stuff is lethal!" and "Very dangerous on a hot day." These comments came from people who tried Mad Bomber Brand’s new Loud Mustard and then talked about it on mustardstore.com, a site that lists over a hundred brands of every kind of mustard, describes them, and tells you where to get them. "Loud Mustard was supposed to be sweet hot, with honey and horseradish," says Mad Bomber owner Bob Betts, "but it came out this hot. We just arrived at this heat by accident, and then the product won a Scovie Award." MB’s Lil’ Genius gourmet line has a spicy brown mustard and will be introducing a sweet hot featuring spices rather than raw heat, as the company sees the extra-hot market as still growing but approaching saturation. Gourmet, maintains Betts, has a wider audience.
Sweet hot mustard has become a huge favorite because of its versatility. As people seek healthful and convenient food products with a dash of the uptown and the exotic, they look at mustards that will transform their grilled and roasted dishes and finger foods into cuisine extraordinaire. Fruit and berry mustards lend themselves to any number of uses and practically beg the cook to get creative; one example is this year’s international grand champion Raspberry Honey mustard by Robert Rothschild. Try sweet hot mustards on chicken, ham, and artichokes. Barbecue with them. Use them for salads. Try Mrs. Dog’s Disappearing Mustard, originally concocted for stone crab claws. No crab claws handy? Use it for fried brie, or pretzels, or veggies.
The mania for ethnic foods comes with a desire for foods that give the right effect without a whole lot of work. If you loved what you ate on your trip to New Orleans, jazz up your chicken wings at home with Rex® Creole Mustard. Or go Caribbean with a moki-moki mustard from the Mo Hotta-Mo Betta catalog.
New editions of famous standard cookbooks show an increase of some 600 percent for mustard-featured recipes. However, my enthusiasm over this was short-lived when I saw that you had to MAKE the mustard using a dozen ingredients or so. Who has the time? Mustard producers, this is your market. I can get a fabulous-tasting gourmet dish simply by opening a jar of mustard combinations such as orange-honey, creamy dill, Thai peanut, horseradish, garlic, or even beer. One of my favorites is Mendocino Mustard’s Seeds & Suds, made with microbrewed ale--two great flavor companions.
Mustard is a natural for cross-merchandising, and with a little bit of information and incentive, converts can be made. Cooks: comb the catalogs and the Internet and read the labels in the stores to come up with your own great international dishes. Producers: pick memorable names, design smashing labels, provide recipes, be distinctive--Lil’ Genius has its own mascot. Marketers: offer tastings and create displays that educate the public about the diversity of mustard and its low-cal attributes.
"People are becoming more and more adventurous," Levenson says. Actually, mustard can be addictive, but probably a lot of people don’t know that yet."
Susan Craig is an Albuquerque freelance writer and business consultant. In addition to writing regularly for Fiery Foods Magazine, she writes for a number of local, regional and national publications and publishes several business and trade guides each year.
Sources:
Barry Levenson, Curator
Mount Horeb Mustard Museum
109 East Main Street
Mount Horeb, WI 53572
PH: (608) 437-3986; (800) 438-6878; FAX: (608) 437-4018Bob Betts, Owner
Mad Bomber Brands
P.O. Box 140
Sharpes, FL 32959
PH: (407) 639-0207; FAX: same
e-mail: mbbrands@brevard.netOther products cited from:
Mendocino Mustard, Inc., PH: (707) 964-2250
Mo Hotta-Mo Betta®, PH: (800) 462-3220
Mrs. Dog’s Products, Inc., PH: (800) 2-MRSDOG
Rex® Pure Foods, Inc., PH: (800) 344-8314